For me, the social communication piece of 2E is the most confusing and difficult to understand. It seems like, reading here, this is a problem for nearly every 2nd E, at least to some degree.

So many of us outright dismissed "social skills" as a potential problem with our children, if they were: polite, talkative, friendly, gregarious, outgoing, funny, popular with peers, etc.

My duh moment was recognizing that being "sociable" and having good social communication skills are two different things.

This evolved over time, as it slowly began to dawn on me that while DS is highly verbal and very funny (I believe this is is social currency), he does not use language effectively to meet his basic needs. I think for some of these kids, they have had such ineffective interactions they begin to avoid them. I could write a novel, but it's summarized by DS' declaration that "I've figured out that when I try to explain myself, I just make everyone angry, so it's better to nod and agree."

He will agree to ANYTHING an authority(teacher) says and will not even attempt to explain things like "I did my work but I can't find it. I don't understand how to begin this assignment. I was absent that day." Etc. Ahem. At least he doesn't argue. I guess.

He has begun to spin little tales like "my mom took it out of my backpack, I left it on my homework desk, etc.," but only under duress. I have mixed feelings about this.

I found this article and it's really long, but for those of us to continue to wonder what-the is going on with our children, I thought it elaborated in some useful ways:
https://www.socialthinking.com/Articles?name=Social%20Thinking%20Social%20Communication%20Profile

FWIW, my DS has never felt "bullied," but I suspect strongly this is because he has always been surrounded by a fairly diverse and accepting crowd--as well as many gifted peers occupying various positions on the socia-skillsl spectrum. I do remember hearing this conversation, once, when he was young:

DS' classmate: YOU'RE ODD!
DS: I'M NOT ODD, YOU'RE ODD!!!!
(And I remember thinking, "this is an odd argument for a couple of kindergartners to be having.")

I think he has also been protected, somewhat, by the fact that his interests are fairly mainstream (sports, video games, ) and he is not obviously geeky and uses class clown persona to increase his acceptance, fairly successfully.

Another long post from me...please share any thoughts, resources, ways of conceptualizing social communication, etc., of which you are aware.